Choosing Humanity or Diplomacy!!!

The current debate going on internationally against the srilankan government's atrocities against tamil civilians has sparked contrasting reviews in different lobbies.

It was a rather late response to UK based channel 4's documentary Srilanka's killing fields. The video was shown in the UN human rights commission (UNHRC), which shocked each and every person and the world, many of them in tears. The video illustrates a very disturbing account of the attacks of srilankan army on LTTE stronghold. They started the attack on the town named kilinochi and slowly wiping out most of the people in other northern and eastern parts of lanka. During the war, the video shows common civilians running for life, beaten up to death, shot at gunpoint and young women sexually abused and killed later. The video also shows men n women stripped and killed with a gun shot on the skull, much like the Taliban killings. As the nude bodies were piled up in a truck, the srilankan soldiers even passed some lewd comments on the dead bodies of young females.

To make it more painful, the army even did heavy shelling on the no fly zones, which were used as makeshift hospitals to treat the wounded. The hospitals, refugee camps, and food shelters everything was brought down with attacks. The channel gives an estimate of 40000 casualties and many wounded and disabled. Srilankan government as expected out rightly denied the allegations and said the videos were maligned. One of the srilankan channels also counterfeited the claims of the documentary. The most shocking part was that supposedly UN had full knowledge of things going on in srilanka but did nothing.

US then passed a resolution against the war crimes in UNHRC which was later passed by UN. Then the decision was taken to vote for the resolution. 24 Countries supported the resolution, 18 against and 8 absentees. There was a whole debate whether India should support or not, but they finally gave up to the pressure by Tamil nadu govt and voted against one of the most trusted allies of our country. Though India tried to lighten the stand with a request to bring an amendment to the resolution that the entire human rights enquiry is done with consultation of the government. Most neighbors including china, Pakistan supported Lankan stand. Srilankan president Rajapakshe quoted it was against the very international law, it is an attack on sovereignty. Though srilanka did agree to make some amendments abiding to Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation commission (LLRC). And said that they would do whatever is feasible.  So does this make us the odd one out amongst the SAARC countries, the debate continues?

Interesting thing is the resolution was passed by the very United States, who themselves were accused of war crimes on innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Well the matter just died down. There were no UN resolutions to it as far as I know. So did we bow down to the west, supporting the very country that have accused us many times of human rights violations in Kashmir and Assam and need for international interference. Did US just made us look like puppets, the question remains?

Finally no one thought about the humanity in the whole raging issue of diplomacy we have all forgotten the common man, aam aadmi. What were the fault of those young kids who were killed in the attack, or the men and women. These people just worked hard to earn their daily bread. Immaterial of the fights between srilankan government and LTTE, they just carried on with their life to feed their family. Killing people is not new to LTTE either. Thousands of people have died in srilanka due to their suicide bombings and attacks on bureaucrats. Who died the innocent common man. LTTE killings cannot be pardoned; the most famous was the killing of our then prime minister the charismatic late Rajiv Gandhi. India might have done lot of progress with him at the helm. LTTE even trained small kids to operate guns, they trained their army, got their weaponry secretly from neighboring countries. They used to make innocent civilians as pawns, provoke them, and train them to carry out suicide bombings. Again the common people suffered because of these extremists. Fighting for a cause is just but resorting to terrorism is not. But again it’s easier to say it sitting here, but situations over the years have provoked terrorism.

In the aftermath of the war, it just makes you wonder, decades of rivalry, perseverance and fight for a separate state just got these people a lot. Was it worth? Was it worth to see your family die in front of you or the ladies brutally and sexually abused. Was it all worth for the common man? He still suffers and will do so in the future...